It does not need to restart any of the nuclear reactors shut down after the Fukushima disaster.

In Europe, the fact that the Doel 3 and Tihange 2 reactors in Belgium are out of action after inspections indicated cracks in their reactor vessels underscores the ongoing risk to public safety that nuclear power poses.

It’s possible that the damage is so great that these reactors will never be restarted.

Belgian nuclear watchdog FANC organised a meeting of nuclear safety authorities in Brussels last month to discuss the issue. Officials from Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the US and Argentina attended the talks.

Greenpeace is alarmed, however, that the operators and nuclear regulators of the reactors in these other countries claim they have no problems at all.

We are calling for all of these reactors to be immediately shutdown to allow for proper and thorough investigations and to ensure public safety.

The plant’s operators were hoping to extend the aging plant’s lifetime until 2019, which would have cost an estimated 120 million euros (US$153 million) in modernisation and safety upgrades, but this week finally admitted defeat.

This should signal the start of Spain’s renewable and sustainable future and is a huge victory for campaigners in Spain who have been fighting the good fight for 20 years.

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(Unregistered) SteveW
says:

"Japan's decision to end its reliance on nuclear power by the 2030s means it will join countries such as Germany and Switzerland in turning a...

"Japan's decision to end its reliance on nuclear power by the 2030s means it will join countries such as Germany and Switzerland in turning away from nuclear power after last year's Fukushima disaster."

Will they also be joining Germany in commissioning nearly two dozen new coal fired plants to give them a chance of keeping the lights on?

They have also effectively quit the Kyoto protocol, and are in the "good" company of Canada, Russia the USA and China (of which the first three will be very happy to sell gas and oil to Japan):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/dec/13/canada-pulls-out-kyoto-protocol
In short, Kyoto is dead - and Greenpeace helped kill it.

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(Unregistered) Matti Adolfsen
says:

Japan, Germany and Switzerland are not the only countries in the world that made decisions to phase out nuclear. The first one was Austria. The 1978 r...

Japan, Germany and Switzerland are not the only countries in the world that made decisions to phase out nuclear. The first one was Austria. The 1978 referendum showed more than 50% of people were against of starting the recently finished Zwentendorf NPP, so it was never started. In Italy, there was a referendum after chernobyl accident: all the NPP:s were stopped and so was the construction of the Montalto di Castro NPP as well.

After Fukushima, several countries followed this path. Kuwait and Bahrain had plans to build nuclear power. these plans were scrapped recently.

Today, building new nuclear does not make sense. Economics say no. Big German utilities, RWE and E.On pulled out of the new reactor projects in britain: Wylfa and Oldbury. E.On's last project outside germany is in Finland. Recently, 6 shareholders (totalling 10% of the capital) left this Fennovoima- project. It seems it's not a good idea to bind the small utilities to the most expensive nuclear power produced in the country. It seems this projet has too many legal problems (they don't own the land where to build, no plan for nuclear waste ets), so they might not get the permission to build at all.

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(Unregistered) GREEN Savior
says:

I am not sure, it is not my field of expertise, but to me it seems like all proudly promoted closing anouncment of nuclear energy are subject of incre...

I am not sure, it is not my field of expertise, but to me it seems like all proudly promoted closing anouncment of nuclear energy are subject of increasing Co2 emissions. Looking at the vast amount of victims of global warming (death/refugee) there is probably a much bigger amount of victims which can directly be linked to fossil fuel than to nuclear-power.

Talking about Austria...Austria said no to nuclear power-plants, but I believe to have heard is importing big amounts of nuclear energy from Czech Republic.

Looking at Germany: simply a drama.

Big energy and ruling party closely linked to big energy is delaying a possible change towards sustainable energy by promoting the most expensive version to produce renewable energy: until political unstability in Libya and north Africa Desertec, now the german engergy revolution is based on Seatec, Offshore-windpower.

At the moment Desertec, talking about an assumed investment of 400 billion, the biggest one ever made in history of industrialized human kind, is politically difficult to be placed in a unsecure political environment like North-Africa.

Therefor Seatec is the politically correct answer at the moment.

Seatec is physically relying on assumptions close to all limits of physics.

Both scenarios promoted by big energy in Germany is, like predicted, far from anything close to promoted time-shedulee

The more this dilemma is becoming obvious, the more big energy is taking German politics hostage...the state has to come up for financial casualties.

Nobody seems to care that all this was predicted by leading heads of renewable energy who showed the roadmap towards a sustainable energy supply years ago.

Big energy/money is earning big money with nuclear/coal while they direct public perception towards believing they turned green after Fukushima...only a couple of month after they had succeeded in delaying nuclear phase-out.

Welcome in the age of stupid.

Desertec: PR- of big energy

Seatec: PR- of big energy

What would be the solution?

Who was the solarpope Hermann Scheer?

The only question allowed: hat would we need RWE or Eon for if a bunch of us can finance a 8MW Windmill somewhere along a German highway?

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Jan Haverkamp - Greenpeace
says:

@SteveW, Zamm and Green Savior - ranting may create myths, it does not help spreading facts or a sensible debate.

SteveW, Germany is not...

@SteveW, Zamm and Green Savior - ranting may create myths, it does not help spreading facts or a sensible debate.

SteveW, Germany is not constructing "nearly two dozen coal power stations". There used to be plans for a dozen, but 6 of those projects were cancelled over the last years because of economic reasons,. Some of these cancellations were after the Fukushima catastrophe and the subsequent nuclear phase-out in Germany.

Zamm - welcome back - , Germany interestingly did not leave the Kyoto Protocol, because it will still meet its Kyoto targets. However, Canada, Russia, the USA and China are all countries with a strong nuclear lobby and nuclear programmes derailing efforts to go efficient and renewable - it is rather the focus on outdated energy concepts that drive these countries out of line in the climate negotiations. If you want to save the climate, you do not support nuclear power - because nuclear does not deliver enough, too late, against a far too high costs competing with more effective investments in efficiency and renewable energy sources, hinders and eventually blocks the uptake of variable energy sources into the grid and has inherently problematic features like an unsolvable radioactive waste problem, "rest"-risk on large accidents and proliferation.

Green Savior, I share your concern about the power of large utilities and their tendency to divert the attention from necessary efficiency increases and decentralised generation. Nevertheless, Germany is not the drama you paint: there is a lot of social counterbalance against the Big Four's lobbying for centralised big wind and centralised Desertec (and coal and big gas). And that is a broadly carried surge for efficiency and renewables, carried throughout the party-spectrum in Germany.
Austria does not import much energy from the Czech Republic - but it does from Poland (transit through Czech Republic) and it would indeed be good when Austria would increase its renewable and efficiency efforts.

Finally, Japan indeed increases currently its gas-use, but prices already make clear they will not be able to do that /ad infinitum/. This in turn is *now* already a big impetus in the development of renewable capacity and needed grid-reform. Spain is breaking records every month in renewable production, Germany is, I am quite confident Japan will soon follow.

Let's keep the discussion factual and not try to rant too many myths around that obscure the debate. I know the nuclear industry you try to defend is desperate, but they have a bright future in cleaning up the mess they caused - we need them for decommissioning and finding the least risky way to deal with the waste legacy. The climate argumentation from the industry is flawed and disingenuous. Just let's stop with the folly of new nuclear projects and concentrate instead on the real solutions. Let's create myths based on reality - the stuff that in the coming centuries might turn into positive and motivating legends.

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(Unregistered) SteveW
says:

"Germany is not constructing "nearly two dozen coal power stations". There used to be plans for a dozen, but 6 of those projects were c...

"Germany is not constructing "nearly two dozen coal power stations". There used to be plans for a dozen, but 6 of those projects were cancelled over the last years because of economic reasons,. Some of these cancellations were after the Fukushima catastrophe and the subsequent nuclear phase-out in Germany. "

I assume you have some source for that other than your own, unreferenced assertions?